Indulge me, if you will, because I have a family story to share this 4th of July about my great-great-grandmother and her daughter. It could certainly be called coincidence, or it could be called a pretty special 4th of July story. What is certainly true is that July 4th, 1892, was a momentous occasion for my family, and this 4th of July I can’t help but wish a very special Happy Birthday both to our great nation and to two amazing, strong women in my past. So here goes:
Ida Matilda Carlson was born on the 4th of July, 1864 in Stra, Sweden, to Carl Alfred Johnson and Johanna Andersdotter (and yes, I am using their Americanized names for consistency). Though Ida was close to her family, as later actions made apparent, she was no longer living with her family by 1880. Family legend (my family, that is) holds that Ida immigrated alone to the United States at the age of 16. She had no known family in the United States. Her father, Carl, was in no particular trade. However, the 1880s were a peak period for immigration from Sweden to the United States. Sweden was an agrarian society, and crop failures combined with a lack of availability of land for the next generation contributed to a massive emigration of young Swedes to the rich farmland of the United States midwest.
Immigration and emigration documents definitively identifying Ida have not yet been found, though there are several possibilities. A letter written by my great aunt in 1998 put in writing the (often heard) family story that when Ida emigrated, she spoke only Swedish and had no particular destination in mind. When asked by the emigration official where she was headed, the woman behind her in line whispered, “say ‘Omaha’.” Ida did, and went to Omaha with the woman, who taught her English and helped her get by in her first few years in her new country.
What is known about her early days in Omaha are that she did not remain alone for long. In 1883, her father joined her in Nebraska, followed a year later by her brother William, and finally her mother, Johanna, in 1886. For the rest of their lives, William and Johanna lived within a few blocks of Ida.
Sometime in that same period, Ida met Nels Parsons at church in Omaha. Nels was also a Swedish immigrant, arriving in 1881 or 1882 to work on his uncle’s farm in Hooper, Nebraska, but relocating to Omaha in 1883 to attend business school. By 1888, Nels was well established in Omaha in the hay trading field and wealthy enough to support Ida and her parents. Ida and Nels were married at the Second Presbyterian Church in Omaha on October 17, 1888.
On February 25, 1892, Nels became an American citizen. Ida was about four months pregnant with their second child at the time. Anna Lillian Parsons, known always to her family as Lillian, was born on July 3rd, 1892, the day before her mother’s 28th birthday, to her newly naturalized parents. That July 4th was a triple celebration.
Ida and Nels cherished their new identities as Americans. Ida was fluent in English by now. Swedish was discouraged in the household. In Ida and Nels’ view (at least according to their great-grandson), they came to America, they were Americans, and Americans spoke English. Their children all went to high school; both boys were sent to college. Lillian and her (eventual) three siblings were quintessentially American in that small-town, turn-of-the-twentieth-century kind of way devoted to high school drama, dancing, music, flirting, family, and education.
Ida died in Omaha on March 27th, 1933, at the age of 68. Known as ‘Nana’ to her family, she is known to her family mostly through distantly remembered, often secondhand stories that don’t always do credit to the brave teenager who left home and crossed the ocean to build a new life on her own.
Ida’s daughter Lillian, as my father is quick to remind me, was born in the age of the horse and buggy and died (well) after man walked on the moon. She also, incidentally, was still able to wear her wedding dress from 1913 at her 50th wedding anniversary in 1963. That same dress was worn by her daughter and her granddaughter for their own weddings. (Did I mention Lillian was also a packrat and storyteller, and it is thanks to her that we have such a rich physical family history of photos, letters, and artifacts?)
Immigration stories are precious, particularly when they connect us in such a concrete fashion to the scared, courageous, and very alive humans who were were ancestors. This 4th of July, I am wishing a very happy birthday and thank you to two very strong American women who made it possible for me to be where I am today.
Happy 4th!
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